a(n) is also the total number of words of length n, over an alphabet of seven letters, of which one of them appears an odd number of times. See the Lekraj Beedassy, Jul 22 2003, comment on A006516 (4-letter case), and the Balakrishnan reference there. For the 2-, 3-, 5-, 6- and 8-letter case analogs see A131577, A003462, A005059, A081199, A081201 respectively. - Wolfdieter Lang, Jul 17 2017